United Airlines ends Houston and Newark flights to Tulum

Less than a month after Tulum's airport operator named United among the carriers expected to nearly double international flights this winter, United Airlines Tulum flights are scheduled to end in January.

The carrier's year-round Houston service ends on January 2, 2027, and its seasonal Newark flights end after January 24, according to schedule changes first reported by the aviation account Ishrion Aviation and published on October 30 by Simple Flying. Newark was already expected not to return next season. Houston was not.

Those two routes are all United still flies to Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport, and Houston was the one that survived every earlier round of cuts. Once both are gone, the January bookings that hotels, tour operators, and travel agencies in Tulum are filling now will rest on fewer nonstop links from the United States, in the stretch of the calendar the town's high season depends on.

Houston was the United Airlines Tulum route that held

United arrived in Tulum in the spring of 2024 with one of the largest launch networks at the new terminal, announcing service from Houston, Chicago O'Hare, Newark, Los Angeles, and Denver. Denver, planned for December 2024, never started. Los Angeles was dropped for good in a schedule revision reported that same December, and Chicago was later removed as well, according to Cirium data cited by AirlineGeeks in May 2025.

Houston went the other way. United doubled it to two flights a day in the summer of 2025, and at 831 miles it is the shortest route between Tulum and any US airport, according to Simple Flying.

When the airline first trimmed its Tulum network, a United spokesperson said the company regularly adjusts its schedule for various reasons. Simple Flying's reading of the latest decision is blunter: airlines overestimated how many travelers would give up Cancún for Tulum.

Four carriers announced cuts in 33 days

United's decision closes a run that began on September 27, when Aeroméxico confirmed it would leave the airport.

Aeroméxico, gone since September 30

Mexico's flag carrier flew its last Tulum flight on September 30. It had served the terminal since its opening in December 2023, starting with two daily flights from Mexico City International, later moving the operation to Felipe Ángeles International and reducing the service to four weekly flights by May 2026. The airline called the suspension temporary, attributing it to market conditions and the optimization of its route network. Grupo Animal, citing the airline's published schedule, reports that no Aeroméxico flights to Tulum are scheduled before August 2027.

Volaris on January 7, with two versions of what that means

Volaris confirmed to El Financiero that it will suspend operations to and from Tulum starting January 7, 2027. The low-cost carrier said it had reviewed the profitability of its routes and would temporarily suspend flights with lower load factors, pointing to higher jet fuel prices and increased air navigation charges from SENEAM, the federal air navigation service. Passengers booked after that date are being offered rebooking, electronic vouchers, or a full refund.

The federal government has described the same decision differently. At President Claudia Sheinbaum's morning press conference on October 8, the head of Grupo Mundo Maya, the military-run company that operates the airport, said Volaris had restricted only its Guadalajara route and would keep flying between Tulum and Felipe Ángeles. The airline's own statement covers its entire Tulum operation. Neither side has publicly reconciled the two accounts.

American keeps Dallas, Delta keeps Atlanta

American Airlines drops Miami on January 5, 2027, and will continue its Dallas-Fort Worth route. Delta Air Lines has canceled its Detroit and Minneapolis flights to Tulum and kept Atlanta, according to a tally of route changes published by Grupo Animal.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Francois Duflot estimates that US carriers are cutting their Tulum capacity by 72 percent for the quarter, Bloomberg reported.

Avianca, Copa, JetBlue, and Discover were already gone

The autumn announcements follow an earlier wave. Avianca from Bogotá, Copa Airlines from Panama City, JetBlue from New York's JFK, and the German leisure carrier Discover Airlines all ended service after opening routes to Tulum, according to a Cirium analysis cited by Riviera Maya News. Volaris had already canceled its international flight from San José, Costa Rica.

Monthly passengers fell from 107,751 to 47,353

The terminal was losing traffic well before the latest cuts. Monthly passenger movement fell from 107,751 in January 2026 to 47,353 in June, according to figures cited by Grupo Animal, and data from the Agencia Federal de Aviación Civil put the decline across the first half of the year at 33.2 percent.

International operations in August totaled 109, down from 301 in the same month of 2025, a contraction of 63.8 percent, according to the French trade outlet Infos Tourisme.

Business groups calculate that the destination stands to lose more than 120,000 airline seats this season, and downtown hotel occupancy fell as low as 25.3 percent in the weakest months, according to the same Grupo Animal report.

Part of the explanation sits inside the terminal. Riviera Maya News reports that the airport passed one million passengers early in its life, and that the withdrawal of the incentives new airports typically grant airlines was followed by route cancellations over the past year.

Fuel, airport fees, and a higher visitor charge in 2027

The reasons airlines give are mostly about cost. Volaris and Aeroméxico have pointed to the price of jet fuel, navigation charges, and increases in the TUA, the passenger airport-use fee. Carriers have also weighed the planned 35 percent increase in the Derecho de No Residente, the fee foreign visitors pay, scheduled for 2027, according to Grupo Animal. Local hoteliers have asked the airport to lower its charges, The Cancun Sun reported.

Sheinbaum has linked the fuel spike to the war in Iran and said subsidizing jet fuel would be complicated. On October 8 she called false the claims that Aeroméxico left over insecurity, attributing the decision to fuel costs and the airline's business strategy. She has also said her government will review the conditions specific to the Tulum terminal, and has pointed to the return of seasonal flights from Canada and the United States, more service from the state-owned airline, and efforts to ease access to the archaeological zone.

Canadian airlines and Mexicana carry the winter schedule

Some of the winter schedule is growing.

Air Canada, WestJet, and Air Transat resumed service to Tulum on October 24 and 25, and Grupo Mundo Maya expects the three Canadian carriers to operate more than 710 international flights between October and March. The Canadian market produced 101,959 passengers at the airport between January and April 2026, with traffic from Calgary up 103.2 percent, according to figures the operator presented.

Mexicana de Aviación, the state airline run by the armed forces, says it will add 24 flights between December and part of January, and Viva Aerobus continues to fly to Tulum. The airport's administration said in early October that the terminal is operating normally.

One figure is left hanging. The operator's forecast of international operations rising from 552 to 1,064 between November and March listed United among the airlines expected to grow. United's own schedule now stops in the fourth week of January.

The next public test comes Sunday, when the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association opens its aviation summit in Mexico City, where Bloomberg expects the reduced flying to come into focus. After that, the dates belong to the airlines. Houston goes on January 2, Miami on January 5, Volaris on January 7, and Newark on January 24.

Will United's exit change how you book your next trip to Tulum, or were you already flying into Cancún? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.